organizing things

It’s been almost a year. I’ve sought my reprieve, and then slowly, sneakily, I got back into blogging through another channel, another title. Oh, and I was still writing historiographical and public history blog posts for Active History. And then, today, I went over to the other channel to blog and realized that I wanted to talk about food, but also about other things, and isn’t that what the channel over here was for?

So, I am back. I don’t promise to blog with any frequency or to post photographs that are pin-worthy. I don’t even promise that this post will make it out of the drafts folder. I have too many demands and distractions in my life to do something like make an empty internet promise.

(Insert distractions at length, which include – but are not limited to – reading Historicist, updating my LinkedIn profile, reading a lovely blog post about Molly Wizenberg’s new book, getting changed into running clothes, going running, making and eating dinner)

[The next day…]

It struck me to be particularly meritous to return to this here blog when I was reading Andrea’s piece on 15 years of blogging, which WOW and CONGRATULATIONS, and I realized that there is something useful about having a place where one can come and distil their thoughts and photographs and engage with people – or not – as they choose. So I am back, with a new design, having deleted some pages, and with only the promise that I will revisit this when I am able and that I will transform it as needed.

And as a gift, this cake with that frosting. Neither are particularly difficult and together they are four layers of exceptional.

i have no trouble with breakfast. breakfast is easy-peasy. ninety percent of the time, i grab oatmeal and put in a teaspoon of peanut butter and a teaspoon of some delicious sweet thing (molasses, honey, maple syrup). if we have dried fruit, which we usually don’t, it goes in. if we fresh fruit, i eat it on the side or take it to work for a snack. done. easy. the remainder of the time is split: five percent to bagels that the husband has bought and five percent to picking up a croissant because i’m too damn lazy to get out of bed and make oatmeal before i have to leave.

breakfast is easy.

lunch is not.

when i am at home, my lunches are extraordinary: spinach omelettes to be envyed, roasted tomato and artichoke sandwiches (particularly in the summer months). you get the drift. i will poach an egg on a whim. (in fact, many of my lunches involve eggs). but, when i am working or at school, which is every day of the week right now (see also: infrequent blog posts), my lunches are terrible. delicious, but terrible. a stack of meat on foccacia is a wonderful thing, but really only while you’re eating it. my wallet hurts and frankly, lunches out are filling enough that i don’t care to eat again until nine o’clock.

clearly, i’m doing it wrong.

i used to be inspired to make beet salads and bulgur salads with basil and feta. and for whatever reason, that inspiration has left me. i would eat the same salad for four days straight, without complaint, and then buy lunch on fridays. and that has left me. though, i’m thinking perhaps i need new recipes for lunches. the manly man doesn’t have this problem: when he’s working he eats a peanut butter sandwich every day. that takes devotion, folks.

lovely readers, what is your go to lunch? please leave me a few suggestions. it’s quite the conundrum, really.

this could be a post about chopping off my locks. or culling the geese that have taken up residence across the street. however, it is not.

this is about trying to take control of (our) bedroom. because, it’s overflowing. rachel is generally fairly organized, so i peaked around her blog a bit for tips on organization before tackling the room. namely, what i was tackling was my dresser and the closet. specifically, the mountains of clothing that have piled up.